General Milley on our Enemies with Emphasis on Russia

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Primer: For all you pro Russian and pro Putin types out there:

What you Need to Know About the Gerasimov Doctrine’

and

Russian Hybrid Warfare: How to Confront a New Challenge to the West

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Military: The U.S. Army‘s chief of staff on Tuesday issued a stern warning to potential threats such as Russia and vowed the service will defeat any foe in ground combat.

“The strategic resolve of our nation, the United States, is being challenged and our alliances tested in ways that we haven’t faced in many, many decades,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told an audience at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

“I want to be clear to those who wish to do us harm … the United States military — despite all of our challenges, despite our [operational] tempo, despite everything we have been doing — we will stop you and we will beat you harder than you have ever been beaten before. Make no mistake about that.”

Milley’s comments come during an election year in which voters will decide a new president and commander in chief — and a period of increased military activity of near-peer competitors, including Russia and China.

The Army has struggled to rebuild its readiness after more than a decade of extended combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The service has significantly cut the size of its force since the Cold War and decreased its modernization budget in the last decade, Milley said.

“While we focused on the counter-terrorist fight, other countries — Russia, Iran, China, North Korea — went to school on us,” he said. “They studied our doctrine, our tactics, our equipment, our organization, our training, our leadership. And, in turn, they revised their own doctrines, and they are rapidly modernizing their military today to avoid our strengths in hopes of defeating us at some point in the future.”

Milley also quoted a senior Russian official as saying publicly, “The established world order is undergoing a foundational shake-up” and that “Russia can now fight a conventional war in Europe and win.”

The general warned that future warfare with a near-peer adversary will “be highly lethal, unlike anything our Army has experienced at least since World War II.”

“Our formations will likely have to be small; we will have to move constantly,” he said. “On the future battlefield, if you stay in one place for longer than two or three hours, you will be dead.”

Despite the challenges, Milley said the Army will adapt to survive such a dangerous battlefield.

“It’s a tall order for sure — to project power into contested theaters, fight in highly populated urban areas, to survive and win on intensely lethal and distributed battlefields and to create leaders and soldiers who can prevail. Tough? Yes. But impossible? Absolutely not,” Milley said.

“Make no mistake about it, we can now and we will … retain the capability to rapidly deploy,” he said, “and we will destroy any enemy anywhere, any time.”

**** So what is percolating globally and against the United States that has the Pentagon concerned?

Using the same provocations that Iran has used against the United States, Russia is doing the same thing.

Nato jets scrambled as Russian bombers fly south

Two Russian Blackjack bombers were intercepted by fighter jets from four European countries as they flew from the direction of Norway to northern Spain and back, it has emerged. Norway, the UK, France and Spain all scrambled jets as the TU-160 planes skirted the airspace of each country. It comes at a time of heightened tension between the West and Russia. Correspondents say the frequency of Russian bombers being intercepted by Nato planes has increased markedly. Spanish media say it is the furthest south such an operation has had to take place. More here from the BBC.

Map locator

Given the failed truce or cease fire agreement regarding Syria, it was announced by John Kerry and approved by the White House and National Security Council to walk away fully from Russia and seek other avenues with regard to the deadly civil war in Syria. As noted, last week before the Senate, it was admitted there was no Plan B.

In recent months, Russia has been quite aggressive and militant towards Americans in Moscow and other cities in Russia. Some diplomats have been beaten up, robbed and their homes broken into. The most recent incident involved some Americans being drugged.

“We are outraged,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in a statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website, adding the claim may have been the work of the US State Department seeking “revenge” for the collapse of talks between the two counties to address the situation in Syria.
 
Russia’s denial came after a report two days ago by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the diplomats — a man and a woman who were not senior officials — allegedly had their drinks spiked with a date-rape drug while attending a United Nations convention on corruption last November. The report, attributed to anonymous sources, said the State Department quietly protested the incident to Russian officials.
The story also said one of the diplomats had been treated at a “Western medical clinic” – which Russia said was not true. More here from CNN.
American personnel and diplomats are being evacuated from talks and some ground operations in Syria where and when the bloodshed continues in Aleppo.

Russia had agreed to a cease-fire last month, but that fell apart quickly. Russia argues that the United States has failed in its commitment to separate the moderate rebel groups it supports from more radical factions such as the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda.

Kirby said the United States will withdraw a team that had been dispatched to open a so-called joint implementation center, in which Russian and American armed forces were going to join efforts to fight Islamic State and other jihadi groups.

Also Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree suspending his country’s participation in a treaty with the U.S. designed to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Putin cited “a threat to strategic stability as a result of USA’s unfriendly acts toward Russia.” This was a reference to a deepening diplomatic spat between the Kremlin and the White House over Syria, as well as tensions and sanctions that followed Russia’s 2014 takeover of Crimea and its support to separatists in eastern Ukraine.

It is the latest action by Russia that serves to unwind the nuclear-cooperation and weapons treaties that have governed the relationship between the U.S. and Russia in the years after the Soviet dissolution.

The U.S. said it would continue to participate in multilateral talks over Syria, aimed at achieving a cessation of hostilities and the delivery of aid, and would communicate with Russia regarding airstrikes to avoid collisions.

Last week, when it first threatened to suspend Syria talks with Russia, Washington said it would consider other options, including additional financial sanctions or even military operations. More here from the LATimes.

Then it appears the National Security Council and the State Department pinged the United Nations for some action….well kinda sorta.

The United States virtually blocked the United Nations Security Council’s statement that condemned the mortaring of Russia’s embassy in Damascus, Russia’s Permanent Mission to the global organization said.

“It was actually blocked by the U.S. delegation, which tried to bring outside elements into a standard text. Brits and Ukrainians clumsily helped Americans,” the mission said.

It said that the behavior of the three countries “testifies to their blatant disrespect for the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations”, which demands to protect diplomatic and consular facilities and personnel.

The Russian mission said that “when such crimes were committed earlier, including against the diplomatic missions of Western countries, Russia has always unconditionally supported their condemnation by the Security Council.”

“We have to state that the moral principles of some of our colleagues in the Security Council have seriously teetered,” it said. More here from TASS.

Russia is taking all precautions forecasting future aggressions in Syria as they installed the S-300 anti-aircraft missile defense system at the Russia base of Tartus which is near Latakia, Syria on the Mediterranean Sea.

Further there is the matter of the Baltics and Ukraine. Control and management of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea is at risk.

NATO members must increase the alliance’s military capabilities, position additional forces in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, establish a maritime force in the Black Sea and bolster its presence in the Arctic, all to counter Russia’s growing military strength and increasingly belligerent behavior toward its neighbors, the Atlantic Council said in a new report.

The report, “Restoring the Power and Purpose of the NATO Alliance,” also urges America’s leaders to strengthen U.S. leadership of NATO, work to restore public support for the trans-Atlantic alliance and “counter those who threaten to withdraw U.S. support for NATO.” And it calls on alliance members to maintain their commitment to securing Afghanistan and to increase military assistance and intelligence-sharing with “its Arab partners” in response to the spreading terrorist threat.

The policy paper was crafted by a team led by former veteran diplomatic Nicholas Burns, who was the U.S. ambassador to NATO, and retired Gen. James Jones, a former Marine Corps commandant and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. The report was prepared ahead of next month’s NATO summit in Warsaw. More here.

What about the Arctic?

Russia: Militarizing the Arctic

While the Arctic region remains peaceful, Russia’s recent steps to militarize the Arctic, coupled with its bellicose behavior toward its neighbors, makes the Arctic a security concern. Russia’s Maritime Doctrine of Russian Federation 2020, adopted in July 2015, lists the Arctic as one of two focal points, the other being the Atlantic.[1]

Russia’s Northern Fleet, which is based in the Arctic, now counts for two-thirds of the Russian Navy. A new Arctic command was established in 2015 to coordinate all Russian military activities in the Arctic region.[2] Underwater, Russian submarines are operating at a rate not seen since the end of the Cold War. Indeed, Admiral Viktor Chirkov, commander-in-chief of the Russian navy, stated in 2015 that the navy had ramped up submarine patrols by 50 percent from just 2013.[3]

Over the next few years, two new so-called Arctic brigades will be permanently based in the Arctic region, and Russian special forces have been training in the region. Soviet-era facilities have been re-opened; Russia is expected to have nine operative airfields in the Arctic by 2018.[4] Russia has reportedly also placed radar and S-300 missiles on the Arctic bases at Franz Joseph Land, New Siberian Islands, Novaya Zemlya, and Severnaya Zemlya.[5] Russia’s ultimate goal is to deploy a combined arms force in the Arctic by 2020, and this plan appears to be on track.[6] In early June, the Russian Navy showed off its first new icebreaker in 45 years.[7]

As an Arctic power, Russia’s military presence in the region is to be expected. However, it should be viewed with some caution in light of recent Russian aggression in its neighborhood. The former Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, General Philip Breedlove, described Russian activity in the Arctic as “increasingly troubling,” stating: “Their increase in stationing military forces, building and reopening bases, and creating an Arctic military district—all to counter an imagined threat to their internationally undisputed territories—stands in stark contrast to the conduct of the seven other Arctic nations.”[8]. More here from Heritage.

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ABC: The Russians are already there in force. Last year, they staged a military exercise in the Arctic as seen in this Russian Ministry of Defense footage.

It involved about 40,000 troops, 15 submarines, 41 warships and multiple aircraft.  No one disputes their right to do that on their own territory.  It’s just that it wasn’t announced.

Philip Breedlove: We pre-announce ours.  No one is surprised by them whereas the exercise that Russia did was a snap exercise which is a bit destabilizing.

Until May of this year, retired four-star General Philip Breedlove was the supreme Allied commander of NATO with responsibility for the Arctic.

What else is destabilizing, he says, is Russia’s military build up along something called the Northern Sea Route skirting the Russian Arctic coastline. The route could become an alternative to the Suez Canal, saving huge amounts of time and money for the commercial shipping industry.

Philip Breedlove: I have heard as much as 28 days decrease in some of the transit from the northern European markets to the Asian markets. That is an incredible economic opportunity. And it could be a very boon— big boon to business around the world.

Lesley Stahl: What would it mean if the Russians did gain control over the Northern Sea route?

Philip Breedlove: If the Russians had the ability to militarily hold that at ransom, that is a big lever over the world economy.

Related reading: Russia’s Military Sophistication in the Arctic Sends Echoes of the Cold War

Obama’s New Policy on Intelligence Gathering and National Security

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Next it will be some climate change mandate….

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
October 05, 2016

FACT SHEET: Presidential Memorandum on Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in the National Security Workforce

Since the beginning of his Administration, President Obama has deepened the commitment of the United States Government to draw upon the talents and skills of all parts of our society.  Diversity has always been one of the Nation’s greatest strengths, and it is no different for the Federal workforce, which has a responsibility as the country’s largest employer to lead by example and to reflect the population that we serve.  Inclusion has been key to ensuring that the investments we make to develop our workforce result in a more effective and skilled government for the American people.

 

The imperative to promote diversity and inclusion is also critical for our national security workforce.  In a complex and interconnected world, the nature of our national security challenges and opportunities is more global than ever.  As a society that can trace its roots to every region around the world, the American people are our greatest asset when it comes to the United States’ ability to build bridges to communities at home and abroad, address foreign threats and aggression, and lead coalitions to promote global peace and prosperity.  Promoting diversity and inclusion ensures that national security departments and agencies can recruit their employees from the broadest possible pool of talent and bring a wide range of perspectives, skills, and backgrounds to bear to tackle our toughest problems.

 

Today, the President is issuing a new Presidential Memorandum that provides guidance on the implementation of policies to promote diversity and inclusion in the national security workforce.  Currently, more than three million military and civilian personnel in the U.S. Government are engaged in protecting the country and advancing our interests abroad, through diplomacy, development, defense, intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security.  In broad comparison with the wider Federal Government, the federal workforce dedicated to our national security and foreign policy is – on average – less diverse, including at the highest levels.

 

While this data does not necessarily indicate the existence of barriers to equal employment opportunity, the Presidential Memorandum outlines a number of actions that will allow departments and agencies to better leverage the diversity and inclusion of the federal workforce, consistent with the existing merit system and applicable law, including:

  • Collection, analysis, and dissemination of workforce data: Data is an essential tool to help departments and agencies identify workforce talent gaps, assess the efficiency and effectiveness of their diversity and inclusion efforts, and promote transparency and accountability.  The memorandum provides guidance for departments and agencies to make key workforce data available to the general public, provide an annual report to their leadership and workforce on the status of diversity and inclusion efforts, expand the use of applicant flow data to assess the fairness and inclusiveness of their recruitment efforts, and identify any additional demographic categories they recommend for voluntary data collection.
  • Provision of professional development opportunities and tools consistent with merit system principles: Providing access to professional development opportunities consistent with merit system principles is a key element to retaining and developing a diverse and inclusive workforce.  The memorandum directs departments and agencies to engage their workforce through regular interviews to understand their views on workplace policies and why they choose to stay or leave, prioritize the expansion of professional development opportunities including programs specifically designed to develop the next generation of career senior executives, and implement a review process for decisions related to certain assignment or geographic restrictions.
  • Strengthening of leadership engagement and accountability: The memorandum recognizes the critical role that senior leadership and supervisors play in fostering a diverse and inclusive workforce and cultivating talent consistent with merit system principles.  It encourages departments and agencies to reward and recognize efforts by senior leaders and supervisors to participate in mentorship, sponsorship, and recruitment; to disseminate voluntary demographic data for external committee and boards that advise the leadership of an agency; and to expand the provision of training on implicit or unconscious bias, inclusion, and flexible work policies.

 

The guidance in this Presidential Memorandum furthers the initiative that President Obama announced in 2011 in Executive Order 13583, “Establishing a Coordinated Government-wide Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce,” for departments and agencies to develop and implement a more comprehensive, integrated, and strategic focus on diversity and inclusion.  It also complements the remarkable progress that the national security workforce has made over the past several years in recognizing the importance of diversity and inclusion to the success of their mission, including but not limited to:

  • The Department of Defense’s decisions to eliminate all remaining institutional barriers to service by opening all military occupations to women and transgender individuals;
  • The Central Intelligence Agency’s commissioning and public release of two studies on women and diversity in their leadership and its active implementation of the studies’ recommendations;
  • The Office of the Director of National Intelligence release of its annual Intelligence Community demographics report, the first time it has ever been publicly released; and
  • The Department of Justice announced that all law enforcement agents and prosecutors will receive training to recognize and address implicit bias.

 

The Presidential Memorandum also aligns with a number of congressional efforts to promote the diversity of the national security workforce.  Over the past several decades, Congress has passed legislation mandating reforms to ensure that institutions including the Foreign Service, Intelligence Community, and U.S. military provide equal employment opportunity to all those who have the desire and qualifications to serve their country.  Under this Administration, the Congress and President Obama have collaborated on important legislation on this issue, most notably on the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010.

DHS Officially Issues Alert on Election Hacking

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Related reading: Hacking an election is about influence and disruption, not voting machines

DHS Issues Alert on U.S. Election Hacking

The United States Department of Homeland Security has issued an Intelligence Assessment on the Cyber Threats and Vulnerabilities to U.S. Election Infrastructure. The report, which primarily downplays the risk of hacking election systems appears to conflict with recent FBI Director testimony stating that at least 20 states have been electronically probed with four suffering hacking related intrusions. The report does note that “multiple elements of US election infrastructure are potentially vulnerable to cyber intrusions. The risk to US computer-enabled election systems varies from county to county, between types of devices used, and among processes used by polling stations.”

The key judgments also include:

  • DHS has no indication that adversaries or criminals are planning cyber operations against US election infrastructure that would change the outcome of the coming US election. Multiple checks and redundancies in US election infrastructure—including diversity of systems, non-Internet connected voting machines, pre-election testing, and processes for media, campaign, and election officials to check, audit, and validate results—make it likely that cyber manipulation of US election systems intended to change the outcome of a national election would be detected.
  • We judge cybercriminals and criminal hackers are likely to continue to target personally identifiable information (PII), such as that available in voter registration databases. We have no indication, however, that criminals are planning theft of voter information to disrupt or alter US computer-enabled election infrastructure.

Other elements of the report, note the resiliency of the voting infrastructure, but also the potential for nation-state disruption.

No Indication of Cyber Operations to Change Vote Outcome

  • DHS has no indication that adversaries or criminals are planning cyber operations against US election infrastructure that would change the outcome of the coming US election. Multiple checks and redundancies in US election infrastructure—including diversity of systems, non-Internet connected voting machines, pre-election testing, and processes for media, campaigns and election officials to check, audit, and validate results—make it likely that cyber manipulation of US election systems intended to change the outcome of a national election would be detected.
  • We assess that successfully mounting widespread cyber operations against US voting machines, enough to affect a national election, would require a multiyear effort with significant human and information technology resources available only to a nation-state. The level of effort and scale required to change the outcome of a national election, however, would make it nearly impossible to avoid detection. This assessment is based on the diversity of systems, the need for physical access to compromise voting machines, and the security and pre-election testing employed by state and local officials.* In addition, the vast majority of localities engage in logic and accuracy testing, which work to ensure voting machines operate and tabulate as expected—before, during, and after the election.
  • We judge, as a whole, voter registration databases are resilient to systemic, nationwide cyber manipulation because of the diverse systems and security measures surrounding them. Targeted intrusions against individual voter registration databases, however, are possible. Additionally, with illicit access, manipulation of voter data, or disruptions to their availability, may impact a voter’s ability to vote on Election Day. Most jurisdictions, however, still rely on paper voter rolls or electronic poll books that are not connected in real-time to voter registration databases, limiting the possible impacts in 2016.
  • Voting precincts in more than 3,100 counties across the United States use nearly 50 different types of voting machines produced by 14 different manufacturers. The diversity in voting systems and versions of voting software provides significant security by complicating attack planning. Most voting machines do not have active connections to the Internet.
  • We assess the impact of an intrusion into vote tabulation systems would likely be contained to the manipulation of unofficial Election Night reporting results, which would not impact the certified outcome of an election, but could undermine public confidence in the results. In addition, local election officials, media organizations, and political campaigns carefully monitor local voting patterns, particularly in electorally significant jurisdictions, and are likely to detect and begin investigating potential anomalies quickly.

Non-State Actors Likely To Continue Targeting PII, Potentially Attempt Disruption

  • We judge cybercriminals and criminal hackers are likely to continue to target voter PII. We have no indication, however, that cybercriminals are planning theft of voter information to disrupt or alter computer-enabled US election infrastructure voting. Politically-motivated criminal hackers could attempt temporary disruptive cyber attacks, such as denial-of-service (DoS) attacks or web defacements against election-related websites, in the lead-up to or during the election process. Disruptive attacks could target public-facing state and local government websites, potentially including election infrastructure used to report election results to the general public and media; however, we judge this activity would likely have little impact on the voting process itself.
  • Unknown cyber actors in mid-July used an open-source scanning tool to identify and exploit a structured query language (SQL) injection vulnerability and exfiltrate PII from a Midwestern state board of elections website, according to FBI sources with excellent access and information provided by a cybersecurity organization supporting states. In at least three other states, voting and non-voting related websites during the same period observed unsuccessful SQL injection attacks from unknown actors, according to the same reporting.
  • Cybercriminals routinely attempt exploitation of misconfigured and vulnerable websites and webservers via SQL injection, brute force login attempts, cross-site scripting, and other publicly known vulnerabilities, according to DHS reporting from sources with direct access.
  • Criminal hackers routinely engage in disruptive attacks such as website defacement and DoS attacks, through exploiting publicly known vulnerabilities and for-hire DoS tools, according to DHS reporting from reliable sources with direct access.

Vulnerability of Computer-Enabled Election Systems

  • We assess multiple elements of US election infrastructure are potentially vulnerable to cyber intrusions. The risk to computer-enabled election systems, however, varies from county to county, between types of devices used and among processes used by polling stations.
  • Electronic Voting Systems: Security researchers have repeatedly demonstrated in laboratory testing environments that voting machines are vulnerable to compromise, usually with physical access, and such compromises could result in the manipulation of vote totals. Election outcomes would only be impacted if the compromise happened on a large scale across multiple machines or jurisdictions—which we judge to be beyond the capability of any adversary—or in cases of smaller local elections where the margin of victory is at a smaller scale.
  • Voter Registration Databases: Online voter registration systems provide a potential point of vulnerability to enable cyber actors to gain illicit access to voter registration databases. Cyber actors have exploited these portals in the past to gain illicit access to voter information. Compromises of voter registration databases have resulted in the potential release of PII, but not the modification of records—with the exception of one unconfirmed incident of voter registration manipulation reported by US media. The exposure of voters’ information would have limited impact on the integrity of the election process; however, it could undermine confidence in the system and provide the ability to conduct further cyber operations.
  • Public Dissemination of Voting Results: State government information technology solutions generally include a public-facing Internet-connected portion that is used to report election results to the general public and media, which some states have begun migrating to the cloud due to Election Day demand. Vulnerabilities in the public-facing Internet portion could be used to display inaccurate vote results to the public and media. Election Day results are not the official results of the state or local jurisdiction.

election-hacking

NSA Hacker Secretly Arrested

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N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

NYT’s/ WASHINGTON— The F.B.I. secretly arrested a National Security Agency contractor in recent weeks and is investigating whether he stole and disclosed highly classified computer codes developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments, according to several senior law enforcement and intelligence officials.

The theft raises the embarrassing prospect that for the second time in three years an insider has managed to steal highly damaging secret information from the N.S.A. In 2013, Edward J. Snowden, who was also a contractor for the agency, took a vast trove of documents that were later passed to journalists, exposing N.S.A. surveillance programs in the United States and abroad.

The information believed stolen by this contractor — who like Mr. Snowden worked for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which is responsible for building and operating many of the agency’s most sensitive cyberoperations — appears to be different in nature from Mr. Snowden’s theft.

The contractor arrested in recent weeks is suspected of taking the highly classified “source code” developed by the agency to break into computer systems of adversaries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Two officials said that some of the information the contractor is suspected of taking was dated.

TheJusticeDept says it has filed charges against a govt contractor with top secret clearance, accuses him of taking classified documents

**** In the biggest hack of the NSA since the Snowden scandal in 2013, in mid-August we reported that a mysterious group calling itself the “Shadow Brokers” had managed to hack the NSA’s Equation Group –  a government cyberattack hacking group associated with the NSA, and released a bunch of the organization’s hacking tools. The “group” also notably said that if it received 1,000,000 Bitcoins, worth roughly $560 million at the time, it would release all the hacked files. As the NYT reported moments ago, an NSA contractor, Harold Thomas Martin III, age 51, from Glen Burnie, MD was arrested on August 29th, with the FBI investigating whether he is the party responsible for stealing and disclosing highly classified computer codes developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments. More here.

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Harold Thomas Martin III of Glen Burnie, Maryland, was charged in a criminal complaint. Among the classified documents found with Martin, the government says, were six that contain sensitive intelligence – meaning they were produced through sensitive government sources or methods that are critical to national security issues – and date back to 2014. All the documents were clearly marked as classified information, according to the criminal complaint.

Investigators also found stolen property valued at more than $1,000 at Martin’s residence or vehicle. He voluntarily agreed to an interview, officials said.

“Martin at first denied, and later when confronted with specific documents, admitted he took documents and digital files from his work assignment to his residence and vehicle that he knew were classified,” according to the complaint, despite not having the authorization to do so.

The Justice Department’s top national security official, John Carlin, said in Boston that the arrest pointed to the threat posed by insiders.

Martin has been in custody since a court appearance in August.  Associated Press

When Documents and Facts Prove the DOJ and FBI are Corrupt, Libya

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Obama DOJ drops charges against alleged provider of Libyan weapons

Arms dealer had threatened to expose Hillary Clinton’s talks about arming anti-Qadhafi rebels.

Politico: The Obama administration is moving to dismiss charges against an arms dealer it had accused of selling weapons that were destined for Libyan rebels.

Lawyers for the Justice Department on Monday filed a motion in federal court in Phoenix to drop the case against the arms dealer, an American named Marc Turi, whose lawyers also signed the motion.

The deal averts a trial that threatened to cast additional scrutiny on Hillary Clinton’s private emails as Secretary of State, and to expose reported Central Intelligence Agency attempts to arm rebels fighting Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi.

Government lawyers were facing a Wednesday deadline to produce documents to Turi’s legal team, and the trial was officially set to begin on Election Day, although it likely would have been delayed by protracted disputes about classified information in the case.

A Turi associate asserted that the government dropped the case because the proceedings could have embarrassed Clinton and President Barack Obama by calling attention to the reported role of their administration in supplying weapons that fell into the hands of Islamic extremist militants.

“They don’t want this stuff to come out because it will look really bad for Obama and Clinton just before the election,” said the associate.

In the dismissal motion, prosecutors say “discovery rulings” from U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell contributed to the decision to drop the case. The joint motion asks the judge to accept a confidential agreement to resolve the case through a civil settlement between the State Department and the arms broker.

“Our position from the outset has been that this case never should have been brought and we’re glad it’s over,” said Jean-Jacques Cabou, a Perkins Coie partner serving as court-appointed defense counsel in the case. “Mr Turi didn’t break the law….We’re very glad the charges are being dismissed.”

Under the deal, Turi admits no guilt in the transactions he participated in, but he agreed to refrain from U.S.-regulated arms dealing for four years. A $200,000 civil penalty will be waived if Turi abides by the agreement.

A State Department official confirmed the outlines of the agreement.

“Mr. Turi cooperated with the Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls in its review and proposed administrative settlement of the alleged violations,” said the official, who asked not be named. “Based on a compliance review, DDTC alleged that Mr. Turi…engaged in brokering activities for the proposed transfer of defense articles to Libya, a proscribed destination under [arms trade regulations,] despite the Department’s denial of…requests for the required prior approval of such activities.”

Turi adviser Robert Stryk of the government relations and consulting firm SPG accused the government of trying to scapegoat Turi to cover up Clinton’s mishandling of Libya.

“The U.S. government spent millions of dollars, went all over the world to bankrupt him, and destroyed his life — all to protect Hillary Clinton’s crimes,” he said, alluding to the deadly Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Republicans hold Clinton responsible for mishandling the circumstances around that attack. And Stryk said that Turi was now weighing book and movie deals to tell his story, and to weigh in on the Benghazi attack.

Representatives of the Justice Department, the White House and Clinton’s presidential campaign either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment on the case or the settlement.

Turi was indicted in 2014 on four felony counts: two of arms dealing in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and two of lying to the State Department in official applications. The charges accused Turi of claiming that the weapons involved were destined for Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, when the arms were actually intended to reach Libya.

Turi’s lawyers argued that the shipments were part of a U.S. government-authorized effort to arm Libyan rebels.

It’s unclear if any of the weapons made it to Libya, and there’s no evidence linking weapons provided by the U.S. government to the Benghazi attacks.

“The proposal did not result in an actual transfer of defense articles to Libya,” the State Department official told POLITICO on Tuesday.

But questions about U.S. efforts to arm Libyan rebels have been mounting, since weapons have reportedly made their way from Libya to Syria, where a civil war is raging between the Syrian Government and ISIL-aligned fighters.

During 2013 Senate hearings on the 2012 Benghazi attack, Clinton, under questioning from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), said she had no knowledge of weapons moving from Libya into Turkey.

Wikileaks head Julian Assange in July suggested that he had emails proving that Clinton “pushed” the “flows” of weapons “going over to Syria.”

Additionally, Turi’s case had delved into emails sent to and from the controversial private account that Clinton used as Secretary of State, which the defense planned to harness at any trial.

At a court hearing in 2015, Cabou said emails between Clinton and her top aides indicated that efforts to arm the rebels were — at a minimum — under discussion at the highest levels of the government.

“We’re entitled to tell the jury, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the Secretary of State and her highest staff members were actively contemplating providing exactly the type of military assistance that Mr. Turi is here to answer for,” the defense attorney said, according to a transcript.

Turi’s defense was pressing for more documents about the alleged rebel-arming effort and for testimony from officials who worked on the issue the State Department and the CIA. The defense said it planned to argue that Turi believed he had official permission to work on arms transfers to Libya

“If we armed the rebels, as publicly reported in many, many sources and as we strongly believe happened and as we believe at least one witness told the grand jury, then documents about that process relate to that effort,” Cabou told Campbell at the same hearing last year.

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McCarthy: The ‘side deals’ are further evidence of a highly politicized Obama Department of Justice. Just when you think it can’t get any worse . . . According to House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.), the immunity agreements struck by the Justice Department with Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, two top subjects of the FBI’s Clinton e-mail investigation, included “side agreements.” Pursuant to these side agreements, it was stipulated that (a) the FBI would not scrutinize any documents dated after January 31, 2015 (i.e., about five weeks before the most disturbing actions suggestive of obstruction of justice occurred); and (b) the FBI — in an investigation critically involving destruction of documents — would destroy the computers after conducting its search.
These revelations are outlined in a letter Chairman Goodlatte penned yesterday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Goodlatte says his committee learned of the side deals upon reviewing the immunity agreements, which have not been made public. That review naturally prompted a demand by the committee to see the side deals, which — for reasons unexplained — the Justice Department elected not to provide when it gave the committee access to the immunity agreements. The side deals have also not been made public. For anyone who worked in the Justice Department for any length of time, the striking of side deals with a defense lawyer (in this instance, Beth Wilkinson, who represents both Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson) is bracing. Written agreements with the Justice Department (regarding, for example, guilty pleas and cooperation) customarily include a clause explaining that the four corners of the document contain the entirety of the understandings between the parties. This is done precisely because defendants often claim they were enticed into signing the agreement because of this or that side deal purportedly agreed to by the government.
The Justice Department likes to be able to say, “We don’t engage in those sorts of shenanigans. The agreement is the single agreement as written.” Why did the Justice Department make side deals in this case (which we’ve been told was treated like any other case . . . except, alas, when it wasn’t)? More fundamentally, as I’ve been arguing since we learned of the immunity agreements, why did the government grant immunity in the first place? Unfortunately, the question, at this point, is rhetorical. Immunity was granted because the Justice Department would not use the grand jury against Mrs. Clinton.
As I’ve explained, the computers were physical evidence. The law empowers the government to compel production of physical evidence by subpoena (or by search warrant if there is suspicion that the evidence will be tampered with or destroyed). Importantly, however, the power to compel production of evidence derives from the grand jury. In the Clinton e-mails case, unlike virtually every other criminal case, the Justice Department apparently declined to convert the FBI’s investigation into a grand-jury investigation. This meant grand-jury subpoenas would not be issued. Why? Patently, the highly politicized Obama Justice Department did this because commencing a grand-jury investigation suggests that a matter is very serious and an indictment (which only the grand jury can issue) is likely. In this case, the Justice Department was determined to maintain the illusion that Clinton and her underlings hadn’t committed crimes, so the grand jury was avoided. That is how you end up with such inanities as the Justice Department’s leaking to the Washington Post that Cheryl Mills was regarded as nothing more than a very cooperative witness, not a suspect, even though we now know that (a) Mills falsely denied that, while serving as then-secretary of state Clinton’s chief of staff, she knew about the homebrew server system; (b) the evidence indicates that Mills is the one who directed Platte River Networks (PRN) to destroy the e-mails stored on Clinton’s server (although there are salient questions about when this happened); (c) the private laptop Mills used to vet Clinton’s e-mails contained mounds of classified information; and (d) Mills was sufficiently worried that her lawyer sought — and obtained — immunity from prosecution before Mills surrendered her computer to the FBI.
In his House testimony last week, FBI director James Comey tried to deflect the government’s failure to use the grand jury by rationalizing that the FBI was very anxious to examine the Mills and Samuelson computers, and that it is often more efficient in a criminal investigation to make informal agreements with the subjects’ lawyers than to rely on grand-jury compulsion. As I countered in this past weekend’s column, this claim is unconvincing. Use of the grand jury and negotiations with defense lawyers are not mutually exclusive. They happen concurrently all the time. Indeed, it is fear that the government might resort to compulsion that induces defense lawyers to negotiate reasonably. Take the grand jury off the table and investigators are apt to get taken to the cleaners. That is what happened here. With no resort to the grand jury, the FBI was reduced to relying on the Justice Department, which was working closely with Team Clinton’s defense lawyers, to cut immunity deals. These deals gave away the store in exchange for physical evidence the government actually had the power to demand without making concessions, much less extraordinary concessions like immunizing Mills and Samuelson from any prosecution based on the contents of the computers. According to Goodlatte, those concessions were even more astonishing than they seemed at first blush because of the newly revealed side deals.
First, there is the time-restriction. As noted above, Goodlatte says the Justice Department agreed that the FBI’s investigative team would not inspect any documents on the laptops dated later than January 31, 2015. What conceivable justification is there for this limitation? It is quite easy to conjure relevant evidence post-dating January 31, 2015, that could have been on the computer. Let’s just consider the crucial events of March 2015: In early March 2015, the New York Times broke the story about Mrs. Clinton’s homebrew server. The House Benghazi committee quickly issued a subpoena for Clinton’s e-mails. Between the Times report and March 25, Mills (and perhaps other Clinton-related lawyers and staffers) had a number of communications with Paul Combetta, the PRN technician who ultimately destroyed the e-mails. According to a March 25 e-mail, there was a call that day between Combetta and unidentified Clinton personnel as to which Combetta told the FBI “he could not recall the content of the call or the reference to backups in the e-mail.” (Scroll to Combetta FBI interview, May 3, 2016, p.5.) Nevertheless, sometime on or after March 25, Combetta had his “‘oh shit’ moment” and deleted the files containing Clinton’s e-mails from the server. (Same Combetta interview, pp.5-6.) On March 27, Clinton’s principal lawyer David Kendall informed Benghazi Committee chairman Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.) by letter: “I have confirmed with the Secretary’s IT support that no emails from [Clinton’s private e-mail address] for the time period [of Clinton’s 2009-2013 tenure as secretary of state] reside on the server or on any back-up systems associated with the server.” Kendall made no mention of when the “IT support” (Combetta) may have removed the e-mails.
A PRN work ticket dated March 31, 2015, references a conference call between Combetta, Kendall, and Mills, but when the FBI asked about it, Combetta refused to answer, citing his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. (Scroll to Combetta FBI interview, February 18, 2016, p.5.) On March 31, Combetta used the BleachBit program to “shred” any copies of Clinton e-mails remaining on the server. (May 3, 2016, Combetta interview, p.6). Combetta was obviously in contact with Mills and other Clinton team members from early February through the end of March 2015 — the period the FBI was barred from examining under the computer side deal. Combetta tells the highly unlikely story that, during this time frame, he destroyed Clinton’s e-mails on his own initiative, without any encouragement from Mills or others in the Clinton camp.
When asked during last week’s House hearing how he could believe Combetta, FBI director Comey pointedly replied that it was not a matter of believing Combetta; the problem was not having evidence that disproved Combetta’s story. So if the FBI was interested in finding such evidence, why would it agree (or at least abide the Justice Department’s agreement) to an arrangement under which it was denied the ability to review documents on Mills’s computer from March 2015, when Combetta, while in frequent communication with Mills, destroyed the e-mails? Finally (at least until the next shoe drops), why would the FBI agree to destroy the computers after conducting the (apparently highly limited) examination that was agreed to?
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure explicitly provide (in Rule 41) that, when the government has taken custody of property for investigative purposes, a person who is somehow aggrieved by this deprivation may petition the court for the return of that property. The rule empowers the court to order the return of the property if it is not relevant to an ongoing investigation; and, if the court grants such relief, it “may impose reasonable conditions to protect access to the property and its use in later proceedings.” That is, the law encourages the preservation of materials that may have future investigative relevance. By simply following the law, the FBI and Justice Department can ensure that, if evidence is improperly destroyed, the government will not be at fault.
If Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were bent on destroying potential evidence, that is a highly disturbing risk they should have been made to run on their own. No good could come from the FBI’s participating in the destruction. We are not talking here about illegal narcotics or explosives — items that could be dangerous to the public if needlessly preserved after their investigative relevance has been exhausted. We’re talking about laptop computers. Even if the FBI and Justice Department truly were convinced (against what appears to be the weight of the evidence) that there is no prosecutable case against anyone in the Clinton e-mail scandal, it is always possible that new information could emerge that would revive the case. Under such circumstances, the computers could have had renewed relevance and their destruction would have been highly problematic. How would it help the FBI to have had a hand in that?
Moreover, as the FBI and the Justice Department well knew, Clinton’s private e-mails are the subject of congressional oversight inquiries and Freedom of Information Act claims against the government that are being litigated in federal court. Again, why under those circumstances would the Justice Department and FBI agree not only that the evidence should be destroyed but, reportedly, that the FBI itself would do the destroying? We are repeatedly told that Mrs. Clinton and her underlings were not given special treatment, that this investigation was handled like any other. Are there other cases in which the Justice Department and FBI make such agreements?